The art of Tinkering was reintroduced to the world of Norrath as a secondary tradeskill in EverQuest II with Echoes of Faydwer (LU28). For a categorical list of all tinkering-related articles, see Category:Tinkering
Becoming a Tinkerer[]
Unlike the original Everquest, one does not need to be a Gnome to become a Tinkerer. One simply needs to already be at least a level 10 tradeskiller in any tradeskill, have the Echoes of Faydwer expansion, and visit a Tinkering Trainer or Master. The trainers can be found at:
- Karsh Cogsworth by the docks in Butcherblock Mountains. Loc ( 636, 26, 595 )
- Fizza Cogsworth in the Gnomeland Security in the Steamfont Mountains ( -517, 175, 1034 )
- Ebnix Cogsworth in the treetop city of Kelethin near the world bell. Loc ( 420, 89, 238 )
Leveling Up a Tinkerer[]
Tinkering is a secondary tradeskill. Thus, you do not gain levels in Tinkering like you do in the primary tradeskills. Instead, you level it up by gaining skill points for each successful craft - similar to your attack or casting skills (i.e. parry, focus, etc.). The maximum skill points you can earn is based on the same formula as all skills (5 x Level), using the higher of your Adventure or Crafting level. That means a level 60 Adventurer OR Crafter will have a maximum of 300 skill points, 350 at level 70, 400 at 80, and so on.
What you can craft and what recipe books you can scribe are based on your skill points. You have a chance of gaining a skill-up every time you craft a Tinkered item.
Gaining Skill[]
These days the best way to gain Tinkering skill is to do the daily tinkering task in your home city's crafting area. You will find new daily quests for Tinkering, Adorning and Transmuting in Kelethin, Neriak, Freeport, Qeynos, New Halas and several other cities. They reset after 18 hours. However the old method of leveling Tinkering still works.
The trainers for these daily tasks are all named Londiar Inygad. Their locations are in each city's tradeskill area:
- New Halas, Ravens' Roost
- Qeynos Capitol District, Ironforge Exchange
- Kelethin, Tunare's Pages
- Gorowyn, The Wards
- Neriak, Neriak Down Under
- West Freeport, The Coalition of Tradesfolke
The old method is simply to make tinkered items and get "skill" advancements whenever you successfully make one. You must make many items and then either sell them to the vendor, or put them on the broker to sell. It seems like it would take a long time, but it doesn't.
You don't need to craft the highest quality (i.e., Pristine - which is the result of crafting all 4 rounds) of a given item to gain skill. In fact, you can gain skill just crafting the lowest quality (ie. only round 1 must be complete). The chances to gain skill are not any higher if you go all the way to pristine (round 4). However, as you craft Tinkered items, a portion of one of the materials (specified in the Examine window as a "By-product") is returned to you upon completion; crafting to higher qualities yields a better return on these "by-products".
Byproducts represent a significant savings in materials when crafting large numbers of items in order to gain "skill-ups" of Tinkering. However, if you have plenty of materials to use, and your guild mates are aware of, and approve of your activity, using a "Simple Workbench" instead of an "Elaborate" one will negate the possibility of making anything beyond round 1. This can be fast, a character can be raised from level 5 Tinkering to level 500 in about 4 hours! However, the cost in materials is in the thousands in nearly all categories of mined materials. As a result, this is most safely carried out in your own home with a harvest box, fuel box, and simple workbench.
Chances for skill up
- Red recipes have a 20% chance
- White recipes have a 60%-70% chance
- Blue/Green recipes have a 40% chance
- Grey recipes have a 20% chance
You can gain skill in Tinkering even when crafting items that are trivial (greyed out), but the chance for a skill up is only like 20% then. It appears that there is no level limit to gaining skill. Your chances of gaining skill, however, will most likely be higher when crafting items closer to your level.(Click the blue links to see the examples.)
In general, if you craft non gray items, you can expect about a 40% chance of a skill-up, so expect to craft about 1000-1200 items before you are finished.
What Does a Tinkerer Make, Anyway?[]
A Tinkerer can craft a large variety of items. Items range from tools that give small bonuses to crafters up to resurrection items and dumbfire pets. Tinkering recipes are extremely resource intensive. Beginning recipies often use up to 10 or more Loam, Soft Metal, Gems, Hard Metal, and Coal. Unlike main tradeskills, the secondary recipes will often return a portion of the used ingredients to the crafter, based on the amount used in the recipe and the quality item produced. Other than the amount of resources returned to the crafter, there is no difference in what quality item is produced. This includes the stats of the items and appears to include the chance of getting a skill gain.
For a list of tinkered items please see the Tinkering Recipes page.
Notes
- Shortly before LU33 was released, a skill-up bug was fixed.
- With LU33 in late March of 2007, loam components and slagged components were halved.
Where to Find Recipes[]
Tinkering recipe books are called Blueprints. You can purchase some blueprints from a Tinkering merchant, and others can only be obtained by questing or as a random loot drop. Each dropped or quested blueprint is a recipe to construct an uncommon tinkered item, similar to mastercrafted items from one of the primary trade skills.
Many of these uncommon blueprints require rare harvested resources and demand a higher price than items created from purchased blueprints. Examples of these types of blueprints would be Blueprint: Reconstructor and Blueprint: Call of the Tinkerer. Note that some tinkered items require a minimum tinkering skill to use them. One example would be the Mechanized Platinum Repository of Reconstruction.
Vendor purchased blueprints are found in increments of 10 skill points. For example, the first Apprentice Blueprint 0.001 is for tinkering skill 10 and the Apprentice Blueprint 0.002 is for tinkering skill 20. Dabbler's Blueprints start at skill level 120 and Experimenter's Blueprints start at skill 220.
Not every Tinkering merchant sells blueprints for all skill levels. The following merchants sell blueprints:
Skill | NPC and Location |
1 - 110 | Professor Ebenezer Cogsworth VI in Greater Faydark's tree city of Kelethin ( 421, 89, 241 ) |
1 - 210 | Corianda Cogsworth in Butcherblock Mountains by the docks ( 680, 24, 576 ) |
1 - 450 | Fizza Cogsworth in Steamfont Mountains ( -521, 175, 1038 ) |
1 - 630 | Guild Hall Tradeskill Recipe Merchant |
500 | Thalnor in Maldura ( 47, 35, -164 ) |
- Blueprints for items over skill level 500 are only available to those with a Tinkering skill of 505+
- Tinkerfest has a series of special recipes available only for a brief time every year.